Pacific Time

1945: Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller "Spellbound" opens, with memorable dream sequences by Salvador Dalí. 1946: Bassist and composer Charles Mingus, who grew up in Watts, records with his band the Stars of Swing. The recordings, now lost,anticipated the next decade's influential West Coast jazz sound. 1946: Theodor Geisel, who writes children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, moves to Hollywood to work for Warner Bros. 1947: Beginning of organized resistance to Modernism and abstraction in art as well as the beginning of "the painting witch hunt," in the words of art historian Peter Plagens.

Anyone following the making of the region-wide, six-month-long 2011 visual arts extravaganza "Pacific Standard Time" knows it as a museum initiative, having grown out of an oral history project by the Getty Research Institute designed to document the birth of the L.A. art scene. And it will culminate with museums, as nearly 50 local institutions are staging exhibitions exploring one big theme: the history of art in Southern California from 1945 to 1980. Now, some of the city's leading commercial galleries are getting in the spirit, organizing their own shows that shine a light on the early days of the L.A. art scene.

Though I've been on summer vacation for four months, my stomach is still in sync with the daily meal cycles of Boston University's dorm cafeterias. With Lobster Night, made-to-order sushi and unlimited self-serve ice cream, whose wouldn't? It's 4 p.m. here in Orange County, but the growling in my belly tells me it is dinnertime. I'm no longer a student at BU, but just for fun, I like to Instant Message my friends back East and ask them about the daily menu at Warren Towers, my old dorm.

Last time around the focus was Southern California's art history; now homegrown architecture is getting its time in the sun. Getty Trust leaders are announcing Monday the final roster of exhibition and event partners in its Pacific Standard Time spinoff, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in Southern California, slated to run April through July. They will also be releasing the specific grant amounts given to various museums and institutions: roughly $3.6 million in all. Eight exhibition partners received grants from $260,000 to $445,000 to help mount shows and publish catalogs; eight event partners received grants ranging from $20,000 to $246,000 to organize panels, tours and other programs.

ART The Getty's 11-day Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival includes the unveiling of "Kalpa," a site-specific sculptural and performative installation by Hirokazu Kosaka. The piece, which takes its name from the Sanskrit word for "eon," incorporates Butoh dancers, live and recorded music, hundreds of spools of colorful thread, and a wall designed by architect Michael Rotondi. Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. 7 p.m. Fri. Free, reservations required.

This post has been corrected. The Assn. of Art Museum Curators handed out its annual awards this week, and among the honorees were Pacific Standard Time -- the recent survey of Southern California art organized by the Getty -- and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. PST received a first-place prize in the category of outstanding catalog based on an exhibition. The award was for the catalog " Pacific Standard Time: Los Angeles Art 1945-1980 . " The first-place prize was shared by LACMA, for the exhibition catalog " Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts.

Hollywood would call it a franchise: The Getty has trademarked the name Pacific Standard Time to build on that brand going forward with different projects. Getty President James Cuno says they are organizing a sequel to Pacific Standard Time that will likely take place in five or six years with art of the Pacific Rim under discussion as a possible theme. But he said the subject has not been finalized: "We don't want to search for a topic and impose that on a group, but we want to go to core museums and say, 'What is the next project we should be considering?

Was Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980 worth it? The six-month series of art exhibitions at more than 60 museums, university galleries and other spaces all around Southern California is long over, having mostly wrapped up in the spring. Now, the post-event bean-counting of attendance and such is pretty much done. So the question might seem a bit bizarre. In reality, it's not. Changing a deep cultural stereotype is about as easy as landing a robot-rover on Mars - not impossible but something of a miracle when it finally happens.